


It's About Time

by MarlaHectic



Series: Lovers Life (and die) Fortissimo [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Found Family, M/M, Multi, Multiships, Peggy is awesome, Pepper Knows, Post-Endgame, Time Travel, alternative universe, bcs she is awesome too, but only in one relationship at a time, canon complinant, i am multishipper trash, poliromantic steve rogers, shorta kinda, yeah all the titles are falsettos references bcs i am trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2020-12-07 11:06:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarlaHectic/pseuds/MarlaHectic
Summary: After defeating  Thanos, Steve is about to return all the Stones...to never come back and stay with Peggy Carter...but has that to be everything?Or in which Steve Rogers manages to send himself to three different realities so there is a version of him with every "important" person he ahs ever really wanted to be withYeah, I still suck A LOT at summaries (hooray!)





	1. 0.	LEARNING LOVE IS NOT A CRIME

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I've been writing this since I first watched Endgame...the day before its official release...so yeah, it took me quite A LOT. Mainly, because I didn't know how to capture the essense of what I wanted to tell (look at me, speaking as if I were Fitzgerald or something...)  
Anyway, hope you enjoy it,  
Marla

Sadness was still lurking above, between and bellow all of them. If he slightly forced his sight, Steve was still able to see the little memorial they made for Tony out of his power center -The Proof That Tony Stark Has (no, HAD, The Cap had to get used to that) fading away as the stream carried it to wherever its final destination was meant to be.  
Steve forced himself not to cry by picturing how pissed Tony would have been if everything to be seen in his funeral was a bunch of depressed soapy cheesy people (though he probably would feel glad he had made such an impact, too).  
The genius billionaire would want them to carry on; to try to be as happy as possible, maybe have a little crazy party…  
..And, maybe, that wasn’t exactly Steve Roger’s style, but he was going to honor Anthony Edward Stark’s memory the best way possible.  
He was going to try to live a life in which he could finally be just happy. While he thought about it, he unconsciously reached for the compass in his pocket, almost feeling Peggy’s hand over his own while doing so.   
But, before, he had to say his farewell to a couple people.

Pepper was alone in the basement, sitting in an old chair while holding part of the armor her late husband had built for her as an anniversary present; that was probably part of the reasons all of them were still there.  
Well, most of them.  
No matter how many times he saw himself in this very position, alone in a room with the only alive person (maybe with the exception of the Spiderkid and Rhodey) who was hurting as much as he did, he still never knew what to say or how to say it.  
Luckily enough for him, Pepper did have that ability.   
“Who are you holding, Steve?”  
He smirked sadly.  
“It doesn’t get easier, but you are probably feeling even worse, so…” The newly widow laughed softly, with some short of melancholy.   
“Don’t be so nice, I knew how you two felt, even if you seem...seemed not to.”  
He panicked for a second and felt as frozen as he did after falling into the ice back in the forties.  
“We...we did know...I guess I did, at least. He wasn't Peggy…” Or Bucky. “...but, he was...I didn't saw him just…”   
He found himself collapsing into the floor, as some little kid, totally unable to handle his feelings.   
Pepper kneeled next to him, putting a hand on his lap, somehow capable of calming the violent sobbing he had fallen into.  
“Ey, I'm not going to tell you that it's going to be ok because we both know that is bull...shut, but, I think I also know why you came and, honestly, you should be pretty happy too. As weird as that is.”  
He stared at her, surprised beyond imagination.  
“You…you know?”   
“I guessed it. You are going to travel into time, and you have a very special girl waiting for a dance somewhere in the past...while here you have already done your service, Captain. But you are too good to go without giving me your condolences, or not showing how much you did actually care about Tony, because it would have been just as betraying him after his death.” She smiled a tad wider. “Am I right?”   
He nodded.  
They stayed that way for a period of time none of them could properly quantify before Steve stepped up, ready to go.  
Before he left, Pepper made him a last request.  
“Just...if you find the way of being in more than one reality...find one in which I am not there and...save Tony from Tony as much as he allows you. Would you?”  
“I'll try my best, ma'am”.

Next, he was going to say goodbye to James Buchanan Barnes.  
And this time it was for real and with anyone or anything getting in his way; capable of ruin his farewell.  
He had prepared a whole speech for this moment but, the second their eyes met all words were forgotten and they just stared, one next to the other, like hoping that moment would never end.  
However, he knew he couldn't delay what he had to say.  
And so he tried, just to stutter as a complete fool.  
His oldest and dearest friend laughed at him.  
"Don't be sorry Steve, I know you are going back to Peggy.” Bucky got some hair away from his sight before continuing. “You love her in a way you have never loved anyone else, well, maybe Stark, not that you were subtle about it when you spent YEARS complaining about him like a teenager…”  
“…Or like I love you.” Steve choked as he spoke, he never thought of himself as capable of saying what he had just said, so boldly, so directly.   
Bucky seemed about to reply something, looking more shocked that ever.   
“Don’t say a thing, please, it’s already hard as it is…But I had to choose and Peggy…”  
“I get it Steve, I get it…Just…promise me you will wait at least a week before you became again Cap, alright?”  
Both men laughed.  
“You know me too well, Barnes.”

There she was, as perfect as he remembered her.  
Margaret Carter, just across the street, telling in that very precise moment to a man trying to laid a way too friendly hand in a way too centric part of her chest to back off or face the consequences.  
He grinned and stayed right there, while the car passed, just admiring her…until she noticed him and, with a puzzled look, approached him.  
“Steve? But, you…Are you Hydra?”   
Steve laughed.  
“I was, like for ten seconds, a week ago. But that is another story…before; may I remind you I owe you a dance?”

Being with Peggy was as easy as it always has been and will always be. He told her everything, absolutely everything, including Thanos, Bucky being alive, having to witness Tony’s death, the friends he had made, the friends he had lost…He knew he could tell her everything, he had been taunting Hulk about time travel and, apparently, they will eventually forget whatever they needed to forget to ‘fulfill their timeline’ (or something like that).   
He even told her about finding another realities to be there too, just as some crazy idea that could never actually happen…  
…affirmation after which the British woman slap him in the face, leaving him staring at her perplexed.  
“Steve Rogers, if that gauntlet is as powerful as you say it is, it will be a bloody stupidity not to even try it.” She stood up. “Come on, I know some people who might be able to help”.

And so they did, making three identical Steve Rogers –and a totally unrepeatable Peggy Carter- be standing in front of two portals just a month after his arrival.  
They said their goodbyes (which, as an overall experience, were an awkward and weird) and two of them parted each one through a different portal.   
Once only Peggy and one of the versions of Steve had been left alone, the woman surrounded Captain America’s hip with an arm and smiled, kind of mischievously.  
“What’s it?”   
“Nothing, I just…made a bet with Howard. He says you will last a month before needing to become Captain America again.”  
“I hope you trusted more my word and told him I was going to keep my promise of just being Steve Rogers.”  
She laughed, with that laughter seasoned by her British accent, making it even more irresistible to the super soldier.  
“Not at all, I gave you one week.”  
“Wow, what a lack of trust.”  
She held him even tighter.  
“Not by any means, I completely trust you. I trust you to keep being Steve Rogers, and Steve Rogers will never be able to sleep well as long as there is evil in this world if he is not doing something to fight it back. But this time I will always be there for you.”  
And there, just as in an old film (or a modern, as Steve has proved by watching all the movies Sam had recommended him), they stared at each other while the sun set and kissed.  
It was the sweetest kissed they have shared up to the date;  
They just hoped their lives gave them much more of them.


	2. Saving Lives And Loving You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically, Steve managed to avoid the Snap and get some Seasonal Soldier to go on a date with him in the very same day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!   
Half a century after...here it is!   
I don't know what else to say except that sorry for the possible Oocness (if it is there) and my Spanish and quick-clumsy tipper mistakes.  
Wish you like it,   
Marla  
Allons-y!

2\. THAT'S A QUESTION WITH NO ANSWER

If someone asked Steve Rogers how he knew where to send his ‘copies’ with the time stones in order to appear exactly where he should be so he could be with the very few people he had ever felt in love with, the only explanation he would have been able to give would have been that ‘it was just where he was meant to be, as crazy as it sounds’.  
And, seeing where he had ended right now, watching his own corpse in the middle of the Wakandian field, most people would have answered that saying that that was crazy was a misconception.   
However, this granted him the chance to stop the Snap even before it happened.   
Nobody was going to die this time.  
Not on his watch.  
And, most importantly, Bucky was not going to turn into ashes in front of him. 

Thor’s entrance was as breathtaking as he remembered, even more, as he appeared in the middle of the fighting ground with Rocket and the alien tree…Groot, right, that was it.  
The Asgardian spotted him and waved in his direction.  
“Still perfect shave, right Rogers?” Steve kept a laugh for himself, remembering how different that very same conversation had taken place in his original Earth.  
“Something like that. Thor…you must aim for his head.” 

For the rest of the battle, Steve couldn’t help but pray for Thor to actually listen to him (he knew the avenger wasn’t exactly the best listener of the Universe).   
But, when he finally saw the blond tall man holding the titan’s head with a tired but fulfilled look on his face, he allowed himself to breath.  
He went for Bucky, lying in the same place he was when he disappeared; now just tired and trying to pretend he was totally find (classic Barnes).  
He approached him and hold him so tight that the former Hydra spy almost lost his breath for a second.  
"Steve, what's wrong?"  
"Nothing." He took a step back. "James Buchannan...oh shit, nevermind." As he said this, he stepped foward again and kissed his longest-time friend.  
Out of the blue, Sam started laughing victoriously behind them.  
"Told you Nat, Cap was going to be the one to take the step. By the way, didn't Steve have a beard when the battle started…?"  
However, Steve couldn't hear him, as he was too focused in doing something that, having being born in other time or place, would probably have done long ago.  
After five solid minutes Bruce, being clearly uncomfortable, coughed.  
"Guys this is all very nice but...we are in the middle of a Battlefield...shouldn't we help?"

After Thanos’ troupes were completely defeated, the two men finally found a moment for themselves…  
…as they were ‘cleaning up’ corpses from the ground.  
The uncomfortable pair was walking around with a wagon given by the Wakandian people, recovering the bodies for the fallen from both sides.  
With a sad grin, Bucky broke the ice.  
“So…we never got this quality war usual time in our own period. At least these aliens looked better than the Nazis.” Steve looked at him, not truly knowing if to be amused or horrified but that thought.   
His…what were they right now? Still just friends? Something else?  
“Bad joke, sorry, the goats have made me rusty, the arm doesn’t help…Yep, another terrible joke but at least this time it doesn’t have dead people (or whatever some of these are) in it.”  
“No, Buck, it’s…curiously fine. I really really missed you. Oh God, I should have come more to Wakanda…and stayed more every single time.”  
“Yep, Suri said the same thing. More precisely, she has been telling me tiresly for the last two years that ‘I need to be a maid of honour in your white boys wedding, and for that to happen, he has to stay after the almost kissing point, you idiots.’”  
“Wow, the little princess is not subtle.”  
“Not at all, sometimes I get the feeling that she has Stark blood in her veins, somehow.”  
“Could be, she, Banner and Tony seem to have hit off pretty well…egos crushing apart…but, stop with the small talk.” Chris swallowed and got more serious. “When I said that I missed you…I missed you even back then, in New York, before The War, before being Captain America. Sometimes I had this feeling as if the only place right for me was just next to you and…it was just not possible (we both know why). So I pretended that it wasn’t there, that it was just something dumb, or a very intense friendship. It got easier, when Peggy…loving her so much helped me to not think about how much I also loved you to the point I pretended that this feeling inside was exclusive for women, as we were always told and then…”  
“…Stark.”  
“PLEASE IF SOMEONE TELLS ME AGAIN HOW OBVIOUS AND STUPID WE WERE I AM GONNA START A MURDER SPREE.”   
“What?”  
“Nothing, sorry, just…leave Tony out of it. Now we are again at peace, just let it be. But, yes, that feeling, all over again and when you came back…it was as intense as a burning fire. And I am going to stop talking because I don’t want to mess up but, if you please, I’d love you to take you to dance.”  
Steve shut up, ready to hear Bucky declining his invitation.  
“You pay the drinks, Rogers.”

A WEEK LATER  
Steve was already forgetting that this wasn’t his reality on the first place. However, he couldn’t care less.  
He woke up, Bucky asleep next to him in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, just a couple of blocks away from the one he used to live in before the Supersoldier Serum and all that happened after that, more than seventy years before.  
Now, people have gone back to not hating him for being a traitor; though half (or even more) USA hated him for a complete different reason.  
He stared at the former Winter Soldier.  
It was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that was it. Next time, Tony Stark is on! (Totally different setting, btw).  
What did y'all thought? (All feedback is appreciated).  
Hoping you enjoyed it,  
Long live and prosperity,  
Marla Lannister Erso Dan Glockta


	3. Off All the Lesser Passions, We Like Fighting Most

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve put himself in the life of Tony Stark...earlier than before (shitty way too short summary, but the chapter is not much longer either...)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A century afterwards, here it is, another chapter of this Endgame late fic.  
I wish you enjoy it and that you forgive my non-native and quick tipper mistakes,  
Allons-y!

Steve woke up in a very familiar place: inside of a piece of ice where he had been since the 1940s, only that this time it was defrosting way too early.  
The poor man guarding him almost choked with his full of caffeine nightly coffee when he stumbled out of the platform where he had been placed for almost half a century.  
He spoke, not recognizing his own voice –younger that it had been sounding lately- as he saluted with a calming tone the other man.  
“Hello, I’m…which year am I?”  
The astonished worker stuttered, not being able to form a coherent answer before another rejuvenated voice interrupted him.  
“Holy fucking shit! The Cap is actually REAL. Sometimes (most times) I thought you were just a wax model the old man liked to put on display.”  
Steve has to hold himself not to run to hug the late-twentiesversion of Anthony Stark right in front of him.  
“My dad would have loved this…Wait, but how can assure you are real and not just a product of my spirited imagination?”  
Without hesitation -and with an irregular drunken walk-, Tony stepped right in front of him and threw the whisky glass he had been drinking from to the former soldier’s face; who stood still, stoically.  
He raised an eyebrow.  
“Not even a blink or insult? Yeah, you sound like the big fun man my father used to talk about non-stop.” He picked his nose, Steve new better than to react, as used as he had become to Tony playfull-annoying behaviour. “No reaction…this is going to be big fun.”  
Aaaand, with that, the hugging wishes disappear.  
He saw Natasha in his head, eye rolling while telling him how he could have expected any different from the man that would end up being Iron Man.  
This was going to take a lot more patience and time of what he had initially thought. Especially since he was going to forget almost everything from his last time line, as that was the price of using the stones. 

TWO YEARS LATER  
“Tony, what on the name of God are you doing?”  
“What does it look like to you?”  
“Building a goddam armor!”  
“Not an armor, Cap. A robotic one. And it’s all thanks to your influence.”  
Steve almost laughed. He had known Tony Stark for two years -since he had awoken from his Frozen Slumber, as the other man liked to call it- and he would have expected almost anything from him except for the man admitting he had motivated any of his decisions in any imaginable way.  
“How is that?”  
“One of the first things you said after you came back from Sleepy Town was that there was absolute no reason for you to stop being Captain America, as long as there was injustice in this world...and I am way more clever that you, so it’d be kind of fucked up if I didn’t willingly team up with you, wouldn’t it?”  
Steve titled his head, affirmatively, resisting the temptation to tell him to swear less.  
Then, he took a deep breath as he was going to confess that, more than maybe, the other man had also had a great influence over him.  
“You are not the only one who has benefited from this friendship.”  
“Wow, Cap, do you consider me a FRIEND?”  
Maybe not only that.  
“Shut up, Stark. Remember when I described my…relationship with Bucky and…that what I felt…what he might have felt…it was more than friendship…Even if we had always been taught that was not possible. And…well…maybe I am feeling the same thing again.”  
“Who is the lucky pal? Because after falling for two war heroes, one pretty buffed and the other a kickass British lady, your new crush ought to be highly impressive.”  
“It’s you”.  
And, for the first time since he met him, Anthony Stark became speechless.  
But only for a moment, after which he made another sharp comment that annoyed Steve, who replied in a way as poignant as he could.  
What happened next, that is a matter of their only incumbency.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand that was it (for now). What did you guys think? (As always, all feedback are appreciated).  
Long live and prosperity,  
Marla Lannister Erso Dan Glokta


	4. Some Days In Steveland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Firstly, sorry for the delay. Secondly, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYONE THAN LET ME KNOW THEY LIKED THE STORY WITH KUDOS AND BOOKMARKS; you are always so appreciated.  
Going now into this last chapter…just three small windows into the lives of Steve with each of his loved ones aka ME-BEING-A-TOTAL-MULTISHIPPER.  
TW: mentions of miscarriage and homophobic speech (including a slur).  
Hoping you enjoy it and forgive all my non-native and quick tipper mistakes,   
Marla  
Allons-y!

“Jarvis, hurry up!” Steve turned to watch the butler run for his life as they escaped the Hydra base they had discovered…and entered without consulting anyone.  
It had been mostly Steve’s idea, but Edwin hadn’t say no so…Peggy was probably going to murder both of them.  
Where was Peggy anyway? She was supposed to join them, mainly to prevent them from doing anything stupid as stealing documents from a top secret Hydra base in order to discover the moles they still kept finding more frequently than they’d like to.  
And what about Howard? He had helped them find out the information that had let them there.  
Luckily enough, the butler jumped inside the car right before Hydra agents decided to start shooting at them.   
While he accelerated, Steve smiled; he rather enjoyed the thrill of the persecutions.

They dropped off at Howard’s mansion, as it was very late to go to the office and Jarvis was at a verge of a breakdown since he hadn’t done his daily tasks and didn’t trust his master at all (or his new girlfriend) to keep everything as neat as it should be.  
And there, at the porch, were their two friends, hugging very closely.  
“Should I be jealous?” Steve asked, knowing the answer was no; Peggy and Howard were best of friends, but there was absolutely nothing else there (plus, since he still whispered for his lost best friend Bucky in a more-than-friendly-way, he was no one to say anything).  
At opposite as it usually happened, Howard didn’t reply with a sassy answer seasoned with a corky smile, but with a rash, bitter sentence.  
“Lisa had a miscarriage.”  
He froze; how to reply to that? He knew at some point Howard was going to have a child (because, when he came back from the future, he chose to remember only that Howard hadn’t been by far a good father, making it his personal business for that to change in this time line)…but it had felt too soon. However, he just thought that, maybe, things were happening different…  
…there are some things you’d rather be always wrong about.   
Apparently, he had been mute for so long that Peggy had to cough so he would react.  
“Oh…I’m…I honestly have no words, you must feel terrible.”  
“I do, Rogers. Thought maybe it’s for the better…best case scenario, I’d have become an absent father. Worst care? An abuser, just like my old man.”  
Hearing this, Steve approached him, suddenly mad.  
“You listen to me, Howard Stark. Now you are sad and mad, and it’s normal. And it’s true you can be a total…darn annoyance, but there is also a great man behind all that ego and money and I hereby declare, as both Steve Rogers and Captain America; that you are going to be, at least, an average dad, if you don’t see yourself capable of more.”  
“Wow, Cap, if you say it that way…I ought to be better than average, just to prove you wrong.”  
Steve smiled, still with sadness on his eyes.  
“Atta boy.”

Jarvis had gone to prepare tea for everyone, while Howard complained right behind him about it being too late for non-alcoholic brewages; so Steve and Peggy were alone at the billionaire’s porch.  
She smiled at him, slightly mischievously, receiving a confused stare from him in response.  
“What?”   
“I didn’t know you had that kind of talent for reverse psychology inside of you.”  
“Well, your kind have teach me well.”  
“My kind? Spies or the British?”  
“Maybe both.”  
They laughed; then, Peggy turned serious again.  
“Well, I guess it will take a little longer to little Tony to come into our lives.”  
He raised an eyebrow.  
“Little Tony?”  
“Yeah, Howard wants to call his kid Anthony.”  
He smiled deeply; it sounded about right.  
\-----  
When had Brooklyn become so noisy?  
Yeah, it hadn’t exactly quiet when Bucky and him where kids, but this…he groaned, causing his former just-best-friend now-something-else to laugh.  
“Are you really that OLD that you can’t handle a couple of loud neighbors?”  
“More like a couple hundreds of them…and they woke you up from the ice quite a lot of times while I was still frozen so…technically, you are older.”  
Bucky punched him in the arm with his human hand, causing absolute nothing in the other man’s body.  
“I miss when you were almost child-sized.”   
Steve hold his hand and made an almost battle move to pull him closer; letting their faces be so closed they could smelled each other’s breaths.  
“Will you think the same thing tonight?”  
As an answer, The Winter Soldier kissed him.  
They were in the middle of their tender moment, holding each other while their mouths fused when something hit Steve at the center of his back.  
He turned to face a white man in his forties -average looking, of average height and weight-, holding the hand of a child that shared most of his factions. The man had his face red with anger, expression twisted into a kind of disgust that Steve had seen way more times that he would have wished to. There was disappointment in his eyes too, as if what he had just witnessed was a personal betrayal against his person (as well as his offspring).  
“I used to collect stickers of you, you know? As a kid. And when you came back and everyone said you were some kind of terrorist, I supported you and now…now what? You are a sissy?”  
Steve swallowed, remembering what Tony, Natasha and basically all his friends had told him about moving back to Brooklyn, about people recognizing him and, worse, recognizing him while being with Bucky.  
“Bigotry has not disappeared, Cap. And it is way stronger than your free-all-mighty American power.” Scott had said, looking concerned. Bucky and him had dismissed his comment with a hand gesture; it couldn’t be that bad.  
He had never thought they would have to admit that Ant-Man had been right so quickly, while some of their boxes of the move remained still unopened.   
He caught a glimpse of Bucky’s eyes, turning way too similar to the ones he had when he was just a Hydra puppet; he was about to say something to prevent things from escalating when another voice interrupted him.  
“Ey! You! What do you think you were doing?”  
Steve was surprised to recognize Coulson’s voice.  
“Agent?” He knew it wasn’t right, but Tony’s ‘nickname’ for Coulson had stuck (better that than Thor’s ‘Son of Coul’).   
“Hello Captain.” AS he always did before he interacted with Steve, Phil blushed. “Give me second and I’m with you two.”  
He approached the other man that, after having seen a man in suit that had been referred to as ‘agent’, had frozen in the place (after all, he had just hit an international hero with a tin can).   
“I also used to collect stickers and, yes, maybe as a kid and not so much as a kid I used to think some relationships were just not right or natural; because that is what I had been told and, my fault, I took my lessons for granted. But I also used to think –as most people did- that aliens were not real and, somehow, that is something more people has come to terms with.  
>>>This man in front of you is not a collectible stamp or a propaganda hero you can ask to act as you’d love him too; this man is a person with his own feelings and ways. If you don’t like them for some…retrograde thought, that’s your problem; so maybe next time you throw yourself the tin can. Oh, and then you recycle it; the planet is dying, pig.”   
He took a deep breath, kneeled until his eyes met the man’s kid and smiled calmly.  
“Sorry about your dad, I hope he starts teaching you better from now on.” The boy nodded as the father took him away, as quickly as cautious slow motion allows it.  
Coulson turned to the couple, who stared at him with admiration.  
“Thank you, Ag…Coulson.”  
“Aw, please, just Phil. I am sorry about that, one day this things will stop happening, I’m sure.”  
Steve smirked sadly.  
“Or not, but that won’t stop any of us, will it?”  
“And with things like this I know I chose well my childhood hero.” He took a look at his phone. “Crap, I’m late. Sorry; I have to go, I’m meeting with May, she is…” He blushed and the other two men laughed.  
“Go ahead tiger, and thanks Phil.” Bucky told him.  
“Bye. By the way, did you know that in the stickers they started selling after you both…passed away you were his kid assistant?”  
With these words, he marched.  
Bucky gave his boyfriend a significant look.  
“You kid assistant? You knew about that?”  
“Can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, for a little at least; the only way you could actually need me saving you.”  
“Oh, Rogers, there is where you are wrong…  
>>>…I’ll always need you to save me.”  
\-----  
“Is this the place those psychos we captured attacked?”  
“Yep. A couple and their nephew, The Parkers; totally normal people on the paper. Although…The parents of the kid had disappeared a couple of years ago, pretty suspicious.”  
“Do you think it might be related?”  
“Not putting my hand on the fire but…yes, Cap, the chances are high.”  
Both men, on their superhero suits, entered the modest flat to found a middle aged couple executed on the couch.  
They both lost their breath, unable to speak.  
Steve was the first to recover the power of speech.  
“And the boy?”  
As an answer, a weird noise that sounded a lot of like crawling on the wall came from the room next to them.  
Steve could almost see Tony frowning under the armor, it’s been years together.   
“Is that a gigantic spider?”  
“Only a way to find out.”  
“Rogers…Rogers…” Tony had the custom of calling him only by his surname when he was worried he was going to do something stupid he could not talk him out of (Steve heard his surname on Stark’s mouth quite a lot).   
Without even pretending of having heard Tony, he left to inspect the other room.  
He sighed and followed.

That wasn’t at all what they expected. Yeah, the crawling came from the roof, but it wasn’t a spider; he was a little kid, no more than six years old and, in spite of his traumatized expression (and that, well, he was hanging from the roof of the room), his face made you think that he had never broken a dish in his entire life.   
He seemed to recognize them (after all, they were famous superheroes).  
“Hello kid...we…we are here to help…could you…would you…hum…”  
“I can’t, I’m stuck. I don’t control my powers yet.”  
“Your…your…your powers.”  
“Yes…I was stupid, I’ve shown them at school and now my aunt and uncle are dead…Can you wait until the spider powers disappear for now?”  
They both nodded, trying to process what the child had just said. It was going to be a long night.

The boy –named Peter Parker- explained to them he got his powers after a spider bit him when his school took his whole class to Osborn Labs. Apparently, he got mad at a boy in his class that told him he wasn’t a real boy and he ‘accidentally’ threw some spider web at his face.   
He was certain that was why his family got killed; luckily for him, both men were good at comforting children, so he felt slightly better after a couple of days he stayed in their secret installations (for checking out, both his regular and ‘superheroic’ health –Tony’s idea-).  
When Peter felt asleep the eight day under their wing, Tony waved his head, pointing at the door, leaving the room followed by Steve.  
“How long we’ve been together, Cap? Quite a while, don’t you think?”  
“Guess so. Is this about what I think it is?”  
“Maybe, perhaps..probably. We have never spoken about…kids and all that homey stuff. But that kid…is smart as hell, like me; and seems as sensitive as you and with his powers…he needs people who understand that…”  
“Yes.”  
Tony looked theatrically surprise.  
“What, I don’t even get to ask the question?”  
“No, you don’t. We are taking the kid. Shut, that sounds bad…we are adopting Peter…as long as he is fine with it.”  
Stark Industries owner glanced at the sleeping child inside the bedroom.  
“Trust me, he’ll be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand that was it. My idea is to write someday more fics in these three time lines no worries, this time each fic only for one time line).  
What did you guys think?  
Wishing you liked it and, as always, all feedback, random comments and kudos are sooooo welcome,  
Long life and prosperity,  
Marla

**Author's Note:**

> Aaand that was it...for the first chapter.  
The idea is to make this a four time fic and them maybe some one-shots in each teeny tiny universe I created.  
Do you like the idea?  
As always, sorry for all the Spanish and quick tipper mistakes I might have made and all the feedback is appreciated,  
Long live and prosperity,  
Marla Lannister Erso Dan Glokta


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